The café is unmistakably Muggle.
Gellert looks up, sweeps with the methodical, thoughtful slowness of a cat over the gold mouldings on the ceiling, the cream wallpaper on the walls, the mahogany tables and the delicate porcelain cups, teapots and saucers.
This place can be loved by Albus, he thinks.
The discreet, gentle, cold luxury that is almost completely hidden behind the hands and resolutely benevolent smiles of the waiters... Albus always acts this way, hiding his intelligence behind politeness, the extent of his power behind propriety. Gellert fought for a whole summer to get him out of his polite shell; to no avail.
'People trust me if they see a boy who is helpful, kind, respectful of tradition and the established order. I know that I am... different. That I am like you.'
Gellert remembers the pause Albus made just after he said it, as they lay shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, in the hay of that barn not far from Godric's Hollow. He remembers the bright, ecstatic smile Albus had at that moment, hearing himself say that for the first time someone could understand him and understand him deeply.
'But people would hate me if they knew what I really am. They couldn't understand it.'
The resolute sadness in Albus' eyes, the resignation to the lie and eternal loneliness... He could not conceive of it, nor accept it at the time. He was young, and yet a fierce hatred had grown in his heart that seemed to supersede any hatred he might have felt against his parents or Durmstrang for sending him away. A hatred that he directed at each of the Dumbledores for stifling Albus in this way, for teaching him to be ashamed of what was so prodigious about him that it was beyond them all. Even Ariana, sweet, fragile Ariana, he had hated her at that moment, chained as she was to Albus' foot, like an unbearable weight. Gellert had finally replied that no opinion should matter to them, except the other's. Because it was true. Because he was convinced that he and Albus would carry out their project together. A crowd would follow them, he had seen it, but it was faceless and unimportant. The only equal he had, the only person he fundamentally respected, was and always would be Albus Dumbledore, he vowed.
It was a week before the pact.
Automatically, Gellert reaches into the chest pocket of his suit, then his fingertips brush against his neck. Nothing. Nothing but skin, skin that has remained intact, untouched for decades. Since Albus. If he summons his memories of youth, he can recall his delicate touch, when the pads of his fingers grazed his throat as he kissed him.
"Can I help you, sir? Would you like a table?"
He blinks and looks at the waitress in her required outfit, white and black, terribly dull. Sterilized, even. Gellert can almost smell the stench of the detergent used to bleach the laundry, to keep it pure, shiny, untouched, despite repeated washing. He would like to tell her that it's useless, that the stains never really come out.
"Actually, I'm expected," Gellert replies.
He didn't need to say more before she whispered to him to follow: he assumed Albus had made arrangements. He's always liked to have control, even if only apparent control, over things. It made him feel better.
"In the eye of the storm, find a way to pour yourself a nice cup of Earl Grey and then nothing is lost."
"Excuse-me?" the young waitress asks as she turns to him, confusion shining in her blue pupils.
Gellert clenches his jaw, annoyed, and feels the magic pulsing in his fingertips. The glass of orange juice of the Muggle with the thick moustache, sitting at the table to his immediate right, begins to shake. He frowned at this blatant lack of control over his magic; something that hadn't happened to him since his younger days, when he didn't know how to control his anger. This is what this meeting with Albus is all about.
"We have Earl Grey, sir, the best in town!" the poor girl adds, apparently having only caught half his sentence.
No matter, Gellert has no intention of answering her. He pushes past her, wants to end it.
Not with the conversation that follows, no.
To end the unbearable wait that has been eating away at him since the appointment was made.
To end the languor that is slowly burning his heart and the desire to see, to breathe, to experience the same moment as Albus.
We are the same being that two bodies separate.
Gellert walks and walks - did this cursed café never end? More and more tables, more and more laughter, more and more voices that clash, only to evoke the futile baseness of Muggle life... For a moment, he wonders if Albus has not chosen this place to torture him.
As if to thumb his nose at love and greatness against the repulsive creatures he had preferred to him.
The waitress is no longer following him, she must think he's found who he's looking for, or at least that he knows where he's going, which is quite incorrect. A smile momentarily distorts his features: a seer who doesn't know where he is going. The situation is comical; in the past, Albus would have laughed.
Gellert's annoyance grows, he feels as if space itself is playing a trick on him. His hand grazes the pocket of his suit and he feels the elder wand beat like a heart. The moment his fingers close on the soft, quivering wood to cast a locating spell, to expel all those Muggles from the room or draw him to him, he finds Albus.
He's sitting there, leaning over his cup, barely stirring the surface, thoughtful, concerned. Moved, too. He has always been able to read Albus as if he were an open book; for him, he wore his emotions bare, totally unadorned. Today, at this moment, Albus wants him. He craves after him. There is no other expression to quantify the raw desire that binds and will always bind their two beings. Even if resentment, grief or pride come between them. It is not a sexual desire, not fundamentally, at least, no, it is a desire from soul to soul.
Gellert takes advantage of Albus's closed eyes to approach him. In a blink, he takes a look at him, starving after years of deprivation.
The forehead has receded a little and the hair is shorter, but still auburn, still curly. The light comes through the window and hits his locks, as if to prove him right. He remembers a boy with luxuriant hair who had let him bury his fingers in it, in the euphoria of passion as well as in the tenderness of less intimate loves. He remembers dreams and secrets whispered between those curls, plans slowly built up and which, from then on, Gellert was the only one to cultivate. The skin is tanned, almost tan, and he wonders if Albus hadn't taken him at his word when, that summer, he'd speculated that he was loved by the sun. Kissed by fire, had been his exact words. There are crow's feet around the eyes, Gellert remarks, not knowing which is worse: that Albus will find enough happiness without him to keep laughing, or that the years will have passed without them growing old together, wasted on cowardice and remorse. He wonders what it would be like to touch that face, if he'd recognise the line of it, now that it's partly covered in beard. It suits him, Gellert can concede that.
A smile appeared on Albus' face; perhaps he felt his presence. If Gellert had always been able to read him, he knew when they were close. It was like that. It didn't require questions or explanations. It was as much a matter of fact as the rise of the moon following the decline of the sun.
Albus' eyelids opened and his gaze locked with his. Gellert smiled back at him.
It lasts only a fraction of a second, a heartbeat, a brief breath.
In a moment, he will sit down and they will talk. In a moment, anger and blame, hatred, pride, and ambition will well up. In a moment, hearts will be wounded. In a moment, they will reaffirm their impossible reconciliation, further cementing the end of their story: the inevitable death of one of them. In a moment.
But for a split second, Gellert and Albus smile at each other.